


The Boy who Became a Wolf

by wonker8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, Mental Health Issues, clinical lycanthropy, please read author's note before reading the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1824253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonker8/pseuds/wonker8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re suffering what is known as clinical lycanthropy.”</p>
<p>Scott nods. “I know. Stiles told me about it. It means that my brain thinks that I’m turning into an animal – this case, a wolf – when I’m really not.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy who Became a Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, this is a fill for [Katja](http://the-fanfiction-stop.tumblr.com/post/88692712109/6-13-14-pending-prompt-for-writers), who requested: "Scott suffers from clinical lycanthropy - the mental disorder."
> 
> I do not have any firsthand experience with mental disorders (let alone clinical lycanthropy), and my knowledge is limited to what I've been able to find on the web. I've taken many of the details in this story from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_lycanthropy), [1977 article from The American Journal of Psychiatry](http://www.primitivism.com/lycanthropy.htm), and [2014 article from The Journal of Neuropsychiatry](http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1828844).
> 
> If anything is out of order and/or plain insensitive, I sincerely apologize. It is not my intent to offend.

There’s a pair of golden eyes staring at him.

He tries to shake off the feeling. He tries to ignore it. There’s no one there. There’s never anyone there. He’s imagining it. There’s no way that someone – anyone – is staring. He just needs to keep on ignoring it. 

But the back of his neck prickles and he finds himself tensing without needing to. Breathe, he tells himself. There’s no one there. Don’t look over. You’re just going to encourage it.

The eyes are following his every movement. It tracks him carefully. Watching its prey. He shudders involuntarily and wishes that he could be somewhere that isn’t here. Anywhere but here. Anywhere without the eyes.

He hears the low rumble of a growl and has to force himself to ignore it. There’s no one there, he tells himself. No one.

“Scott!”

He flinches and lashes out. He doesn’t mean to. He’s just been wound up too tight. Stiles is on the ground, holding his cheek and looking up at him with disbelief and hurt.

Oh gods, what’s wrong with him?

*

“How would you describe it?” Morrell asks in her usual calming voice.

“I don’t know. They were eyes and they were staring at me.” Scott doesn’t know why his counselor is insisting that he makes it clearer than this. How clear do you need to be to describe eyes?

“Now Scott, I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”

This is stupid. How’s talking things going to stop the eyes? But he takes a deep breath and tries again. He tries because this is what Stiles wants. He tries because this is what his mom wants. He tries because he just wants to be sane again.

“They’re golden. Bright gold. I’ve never seen it on a human.”

That catches her attention. “Then what do you think it staring at you?”

“… A wolf.”

*

This would be easier if there had been signs.

Melissa hates thinking like this because she knows she’s just going to end up crying and hating herself again. But sometimes, she can’t help but to think it. At least then, she would have had a heads-up. She would have known.

“Scott?” she whispers as she puts her head against the ground to peer under Scott’s bed. 

He’s tucked himself under the bed again. He’s shaking violently and curled up as much as he can in the cramp space. She’s found him like this before. Two days ago, when she was woken in the middle of the night by a loud howl of pain. Two days ago, when her world fell apart and she finally realized what Scott has been trying so desperately to hide from her for weeks now.

“Scott?” she tries again.

Sometimes, when she’s firm, she can snap him out of it for a bit. But recently, it’s been harder and harder to reach the son part of the mind. He snarls at her, still shaking. Frightened, she knows. Stiles did a research on wolf behavior the minute they linked the wolf to Scott. He told her everything he could find, everything but the one thing they both need: How do you cope with this?

“Honey,” she calls, her voice soft and gentle. She takes a few steps back, giving Scott more room. “Honey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

It takes a few minutes of coaxing. But then finally, Scott peeks his head out from under the bed and looks at her with fearful brown eyes. Human eyes. Melissa thanks the stars.

“Did I…?”

Melissa forces herself to smile. She opens her arms wide for Scott, and her baby buries himself in her bosoms.

“It’s okay,” she lies. “It’s okay.”

But they both know that it’s not.

*

“How do you know that it’s a wolf?” Morrell asks. “You said that you never saw it. You said that you’ve never looked back at it. How do you know what color eyes it has?”

Scott shrugs hopelessly. What? Does she really think that Stiles hasn’t already asked him that same question? “Look, I just… Don’t know. It’s a wolf. And it has golden eyes.”

She purses her lips and writes something down on the clipboard.

“Am I crazy?” Scott asks.

“Excuse me?”

“Me. This is a sign that I’m crazy, right? Seeing a wolf. I know it’s in my head. That’s why I know the color of its eyes.”

“You’re not crazy, Scott.”

“Don’t lie. I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m crazy. You think all of this is pointless.” Scott stands up. “I’m leaving.”

She doesn’t stop him.

*

It feels like an itch you can’t scratch. An insistent buzzing in his head that never seems to quiet. There’s a thrum of electricity in his fingertips that reminds him that he needs to move. That he needs to do something. He forces himself to breathe. He forces himself to calm down.

It doesn’t help.

He feels the tension gathering at his back. He feels the dreaded howl that claws at his throat, wishing to be released. He feels the golden eyes upon him again, watching. 

“No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “No. No. No. Not real. Not real.”

But he can feel the wolf’s hot breath against his leg. He can feel the soft brush of fur. He hears the wolf’s pant, almost like a laughter, mocking him. Everything’s suddenly too hot and he feels overwhelmed by the damned wolf and _everything._ He clumsily pull at his shirt and trips over his own foot. 

He crumples to the ground, his forehead pressed heavily against the ground. He can feel his hands flex, testing his claws. He growls, trying to stop this from happening. But he can’t. He never can. He squirms out of the restraints of clothes, freeing his fur to the cold night air. And all the while, he repeatedly bangs his head against the ground in hopes of stopping everything. 

“No,” he shouts. “No! No! You can’t! Nooo!” And the last “o” is prolonged into a howl. 

And he looks up into the golden eyes of the wolf. The wolf gives him one last look (approval?) before turning around and leaving. 

Scott follows on all fours.

*

“No, I’m not okay,” Scott moans. He presses the heel of his palm into his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, if he forces it back far enough, he’ll never have to see that damned wolf again.

“Scott,” Stiles begins and then stops. He looks down at his hands, twitching as he always does. “Scott, I don’t know what to do.”

“There’s nothing _to do_.” Scott ignores the hurt look on Stiles’ face, just as he’s ignoring the soft padded paw against the floor. “Lock me up. Send me away. I’m not… I’m not safe to be around.”

“You’re plenty sa-”

“Don’t. Stiles, please don’t.” 

The wolf is sitting in the corner of his room, watching, waiting. Scott digs his heels deeper.

*

“My name is Deaton,” the new man says with a cheerful smile. “I’m going to help you, Scott.”

Scott snarls at him, clearly not trusting Deaton. He has bandages around his head; someone had taken extra care wrapping it up. Did he bang it against something? The teenager is hunched and on all fours, sitting like a dog on the chair. No, not dog. Wolf. 

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Scott growls, deep and low. By the door, Melissa stands, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes watering. By her side, Stiles stands, unable to stare at anything for too long. Grieving family and friend. Scott is lucky. Not many get that luxury.

“I’m going to help you,” Deaton continues in a soothing tone of voice. He’s dealt with clinical lycanthropy before. Just once, though. It’s not something that one comes across often. If his sister hadn’t called to say she needed his help…

The teen stops growling. He tilts his head, watching Deaton carefully. Giving him a chance, then. And just when Deaton thinks that it’s okay to lower his guard, Scott strikes. Deaton only has a split second to react. If he doesn’t cover his neck, he knows that Scott will go for it (just like all wolves do). So he raises his arm, just in time for Scott to sink his teeth in. He feels a sharp pain, but he ignores it because Scott’s lashing out with his hands, clawing at Deaton’s arm and anything else within reach.

And Deaton’s lucky. Because he lifted his arm up in time, it’s stopped Scott from advancing. It buys him precious few seconds to stop the kid. Reaching into his pocket with his other hand, he pulls out a syringe filled with tranquilizer. He had been hoping that he wouldn’t have to use this but… He pulls the cap off with his teeth and stabs the kid with it.

For few minutes, Scott struggles. He fights against the tranquilizer, fights against sleep. He claws and gnaws and does everything he can think of to stop Deaton. But eventually, he loses the battle and drifts.

Deaton pulls his arms out of Scott’s mouth.

“This is helping him?” Stiles asks, looking sick.

“For now, this is helping me,” Deaton tells him. Honest. Because if he’s not honest, then he’s going to get lost in the maze of the lies of the world. “But don’t worry, we can help him.”

He tries not to feel heartbroken by the twin look of hopes on their faces.

*

“What did you do when you first discovered it?” Deaton asks. 

Today’s a good day. Scott’s himself and, for the most part, cooperating. He gives Deaton a crocked smile.

“At first, I thought I was just dreaming. That there was this wolf in my dream and it had nothing to do with me. I didn’t really think anything was happening until I woke up naked in the middle of the forest. I put two and two together, you know. The dreams about running through the forest. The dreams about becoming a wolf. And I asked my friend Stiles to help me…”

*

Stiles rushes into Scott’s room, breathless because he’s ran all the way here. “Scott,” he says as greeting before quickly scanning the room. “You said that there was trouble?”

“Today’s the night of the full moon.” 

“Yeah, I know. Few of the guys were going to-” Stiles stops when he spots the chains that Scott is holding out to him. “What are those? Scott? You’re scaring me. I’m not really into that kind of things and-”

“Help me. Stiles, don’t let me become a monster again.”

*

“… You chained yourself up?”

Scott nods, half-ashamed and half-sheepish. “I didn’t know what else to do. And if I accidentally went outside and killed someone…” The teen shudders, closing in on himself and making himself look smaller. “I was terrified.”

“And your friend went along with this?”

“Only because he was scared, too. I think I scared him. He went along with it. He stayed with me through the whole night. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but I know it scared him.”

Deaton nods. “Then what happened?”

“I didn’t transform. I mean… I did, but… not like in the movies. No extra hair or fur or fangs or anything. Just… Mentally. Stiles said that he tried to talk to me throughout, but I didn’t respond well to it. If I hadn’t been chained, I probably would have attacked him.”

“And where was your mother in all of this?”

“At work. She had the night shift.”

Deaton makes more notes and lets the uncomfortable silence settle between them. He thinks he knows how to help Scott. He thinks this way because he’s helped another who had suffered the same symptoms. But here’s the thing. Just because a cure worked on one person doesn’t mean it’ll work on everyone. Deaton has to thread carefully.

“You’re suffering what is known as clinical lycanthropy.”

Scott nods. “I know. Stiles told me about it. It means that my brain thinks that I’m turning into an animal – this case, a wolf – when I’m really not.”

Deaton’s impressed. Most tend not to be this thorough when researching a mental condition. One because it’s scary as hell trying to figure out what the afflicted person has and another because there’s so many conditions that it’s impossible to label them all.

“Stiles said… He said that it could be caused by something else. Like… schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression. But… I’m not… I’m not, am I?”

“I don’t know, Scott. But I’ve dealt with a case not dissimilar to yours. We’ve managed to help her with neuroleptic medication.”

“Would it help me?”

“Maybe. But you have to understand. These drugs aren’t exactly safe and they have side effects.”

“Would it stop me from turning?”

“Probably.”

Scott nods. “Then give it to me.”

*

“When will we know?” Melissa asks. She looks so small under her wrap, huddled and hunched as if it can protect her from the world.

“I don’t know,” Deaton tells her honestly. “I don’t even know if it’ll work. You have to understand, the human brain is a delicate thing. You never know what you’re doing to it by introducing a foreign substance to it.”

“What about your other client? The one with the same symptoms? What happened to her?”

Deaton looks down at the ground for a second before meeting Melissa’s eyes. “Talia Hale is dead.”

“Did the…?”

He shakes his head. “No. Her death was unrelated. Her family was just unfortunate victims to a fire.”

“Then before she died, did she…?”

“For the most part, yes. She was sane.”

And that gives Melissa hope.

*

Scott looks up at the approach of the wolf. It walks confidently and proudly, and stops only a few feet away from Scott. It looks at him with its golden eyes, judging. Then it must have decided on something, because the wolf gave him the most human-like smirk before it padded away, never looking back once.

It’s the first sign of victory, but Scott can’t help but to worry about the smirk.

*

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Scott grins widely at Deaton, beaming proudly. “I don’t even know where to begin to thank you. I haven’t felt this free in about months! The full moon passed and I didn’t transform at all! You’re a miracle worker, Doctor Deaton!”

Deaton smiles at the enthusiasm but he can’t quite let it reach his eyes. 

“Doc?” Scott asks. He must understand what this means, right? Why Deaton isn’t celebrating with the rest of the group? “Is something… Is everything okay?”

“Scott, clinical lycanthropy isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a symptom of something else.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means we stopped the battle with the wolf for now, but now, we must finish a war.”

“Against what?”

“Yourself.”

*

It’s not an easy fight, but it’s not impossible. Some days are better than others. And other days, things are down right a terror. But they trudge on through the marshes of Scott’s mind and the shattered remains of what’s left of it.

Sometimes, Melissa thinks that the wolf was easier to deal with. That all of this would have been so much easier if there had been signs. Then she shakes her head because this is the hand of cards she’s been dealt with. She tells her self to steel her heart because she never knows what she’s going to find. She reminds herself that she’s a mother. That that’s her baby boy waiting for her.

“Good morning, Scott,” she greets, kissing her son on his forehead.

Scott smiles back, vacant. Empty. The drugs are doing their job.

“I’m going to read you a book today…”


End file.
